Shirt board



I. WOLFF SHIRT BOARDS Dec. 21, 1943.

Filed Oct. 17, 1940 m W M M W 6 n .7/ a h W M M n WWW -w 1111111 iwil. M MWWH m M M Patented Dec. 21, 1943 UNITED STATES ?ATENT OFFICE SHIRT BOARD Ivan W011i, New York, N. Y.

Application October 17, 1940, Serial No. 361,515 01. 229-87) 2 Claims.

This invention relates to devices commonly known as shirt boards and aims to provide a new and useful one-piece device of this class, which, incorporating a readily openable box, chamber or housing having when closed not only a definitely predetermined width and length but also a definitely predetermined depth, and at the same time having an integral part for acting as an interceptor, positioner and protector for the shirt collar, provides a novel and valuable means for packaging individual shirts either when new or after being washed and ironed at the laundry.

A particular object, further, is to provide a shirt board having the box-like characteristic just explained, and one which, capable of being scored and cut to produce from a suitable cardboard or paper-like material a single variously foldable blank, can be thus cut from said material with negligible waste of the latter, and when folded and closed can be of rectangular outline so far as are concerned its major subdivisions which establish the bottom and top walls of the box.

Since an aspect of utility in any new device, is its ease of being merchandized, from direct sale or otherwise, an important object of the invention, from the practical viewpoint just indicated, is the provision of a shirt box-tube, or box, as it will hereinafter be called, which will have special characteristics rendering it uniquely suitable for use as a combined shirt-box and advertising medium; to the end that, keeping in mind the practice in the match-book field, by the present invention there will be produced a useful entity capable, as is a match-book, of use more than once or usable once yet desirably to be preserved for possible future use-thereby to provide an article of other than the immediately-throwaway kind, and which, consequently, because areas thereof are leasable for advertising at sufficiently profitable rates, can be distributed at trifling cost if not gratis to various laundries.

For the attainment of this object, the invention provides a shirt boxso attractive in appearance so fully protective of the collar and all parts of a laundered shirt, so really compact when closed, and so readily reusable, thatthe householder will, after receiving the box from the utility to the householder, is in most cases, as it is a throw-away item having to be disposed of, more of a nuisance than not. The new shirt box, however, has instant appeal for its preservation, as likely to prove useful later, as in packing shirts for an out of townjourney. It is fundamental in the art of advertising that the value of media increases substantially in geometric ratio to the repetitive attribute of such medium; and any article carrying an advertising message is subject to this rule, so that an article so constituted that it will be preserved for future use and seen again at intervals is of infinitely more value as said medium than a one-use, throwaway article.

The present invention, as will be understood, may be variously embodied within the scope thereof. But several forms of the invention as now approved are illustratively shown in the accompanying drawing, in which:

Fig. 1 is a plan view of a unitary blank pursuant to the invention.

Fig. 2 is a transverse section'taken through the shirt box as folded up from the blank of Fig. 1, not only to establish the closed box but also to position the collar-interceptor in collar-protecting position-this view being taken on the line 2-2 of Fig. 1.

Fig. 3 is a perspective view, showing said box with the parts arranged as last described.

Fig. 4 is a view similar to Fig. 1, but showing a blank pursuant to another now favored way of carrying out the invention.

Fig. 5 is a view similar to Fig. 3, showing the box established from the blank of Fig. 4.

Fig. 6, on a somewhat reduced scale, shows the blank of Fig. ywith two of its four major surface areas utilized as advertising media.

I am aware that it has heretofore been proposed to provide a shirt box-tube, or shirt box as it is herein called, from a single scored and folded blank, as in U. S. Patent 1,676,286; and I am also aware that it has heretofore been proposed to provide ashirt'board of the plain-sheet type, with .or withoutfoldable flap-extensions at sides and. bottom, and having at the top of said board a transverse stripestablished as such by being cut in from opposite sides of the board to form two tabs or ears oppositely extended from a central neck for maintaining joinder of said strip or member with the main part of the board. A construction of the kind just described is shown in U. S. Patent 1,838,262. This strip member of the last-noted patent could not, however, per se, or even when used with 'a box-tube of less than intolerable depth, act as does a strip-member of the present invention which is intended for a purpose not contemplated by the last-named patent and a purpose which could not be effected by the teaching of said patent. That purpose is to provide, in a box-type packaging device for mens new or laundered attached-collar shirts, a strip-member integral with and carried by a major wall of such box and along an end edge of said wall and capable of lengthwise deformation to define a C, and at the same time a strip-member so constituted that when thus deformed and to a lengthwise curvature corresponding substan- V tially to that of the neckband of the shirt the top and bottom edge-planes of the strip-member are substantially parallel with the plane of said wall.

The feature of the invention just abovereferred to will be more clearly understood from a further detailed reference thereto in the course of the following description of all the various structural details of the two now favored embodiments of the invention illustrated in the drawing.

In Figs. 1 through 3, a blank 10 is shown as having rectangular front and back walls, and, further, as including side-wall panels II and I2. These panels, one a duplicate of the other, are shown as also rectangular; and however they be shaped, such shaping should be such that each panel has a considerable width over substantially the entire length thereof, thereby to predetermine definitely that when the blank is folded up a real box will be provided, particularly in the sense that at the end of the box in which is to be rested and protected the attached collar of the shirt the depth of the box will be not substantially less than the height of the collar.

Alongside the panel I2 is a fiap l3, partially carrying means integral with the blank It for fastening the shirt box closed. This fastening means complementarily includes substantially cruciform projections i l from a side of the blank opposite to the flap 1%; each such projection having a terminal lip M and in rear of the latter oppositely extending tongues It and I1.

Score-lines l8, I9, 26 and 2| run transversely of the blank l; and these, in the present case, are all parallel to the free long edge of the flap I3.

A score-line 22 establishes a fold-line, at right angles to the score-lines l8 through 2!, for the collar intercepting, positioning and protecting means, the strip-member [3. This member is rectangular; and because of that fact, and by virtue of the fact that it is bendable about the score-line 22 into substantial perpendicularity to the plane of the blank, so that then its top and bottom long edges always must wholly be in planes substantially parallel to the plane of the blank I B, the strip-member, when curled along its terminal lengths (these last free for such curling because severed from the main portion of the blank H3 by the cuts shown beyond the opposite ends of the score-line 22), is readily given a curvature for easy and natural upward entry into the space between the two down-folded plies or parts of the folded-over collar carried by the shirt, and for facilitating insertion of the stripmember into said space in such way that, either first or last, as desired, the free ends of the stripmember may be entered into said space. Nowhere around the collar will the strip-member 23 have any obliquely rising parts or upwardly reared horn-lik front extensions, when bent up to perpendicularity to the plane of the blank 10 and then longitudinally curved as just above described, as in the prior patent last-named, for 5 throwing the laundered collar out of shape,

rumpling or wrinkling it and the adjacent shirtbosom parts, particularly at and near the important necktie-knot-adjacent collar and shirt portions, &c.

The fastening elements carried by the flap l3 for coaction with the projections l4 are a number of pairs of slits 24. In the present case, with two projections l4 shown, two pairs of slits, or four slits altogether, are illustrated.

The score-lines 13 through 2| provide, as will be noted, bend-lines for establishing, in addition to the side-wall panels H and I2, and the flap I3, a bottom wall 25 and a main front wall 26.

When, with the blank ID as in Fig. l, the stripmember 23 has been bent, along the score-line 22, through a suitable angle, say one somewhat less than 90, a selected portion along said member is readily entered as above into the upwardly extending space between the collar folds, and 25 as the remaining portions along the length of said member are thereafter similarly entered into said space the member takes on the required longitudinal curvature, as indicated in broken lines in Fig. 3, to conform to the size and then lie of the neck-band of the shirt being packaged. Then, as the shirt body is laid down flat on the back wall 25, the strip-member 23, as the collar intercepting, positioning and protecting means, becomes disposed as shown in Figs. 2 and 3. When the box is closed as is also shown in these views, by bending the front wall 26 over the previously bent over flap I3, the strip-member 23 is settled squarely into its disposition for acting as said means, the shirt-collar is gently pressed to perfect shape, and if already so shaped is so held, all the time the shirt is housed in the box with the latter fastened in closed condition; which fastening is readily accomplished by interengagement of the projections l4 and slits 24, as clearly shown in Fig, 3.

Referring to the modification illustrated in Figs. 4 and 5, it will be noted that this difiers from the embodiment of Figs. 1 through 3 merely in that, while the flap I3 is retained, the front wall 26 is made as wide as the back wall 25, the

root of each projection I4 is crossed by a scoreline I5 to permit easy bend, and the slits 24 are in the side-wall panel l2 rather than in the flap l3. With an arrangement of this kind, when the box is closed and fastened, the relation of the parts will be as clearly shown in Fig. 5.

In the modification of Figs. 4 and 5 slightly more blank material is used, but, on the other hand, there isobtained the advantage that the large areas of the outer faces of both the front wall 25 and the back wall 26 are of uninterrupted expanse across the width of the box, and hence of greater value as advertising media.

Other variations and modifications are possible within the scope of the invention, and parts of the improvements can be used without others.

I claim:

l. A shirt box made from a single, substantially rectangular section of sheet material, said section of material having fold lines on which it is folded to establish a back wall, a front wall and sid panels, a collar protector on said section of material consisting of an integral strip projectlng from one end of the back wall and partially severed therefrom by slits extending inwardly from opposite ends of the strip and providing a portion between them on which said strip is folded on a line constituting the edge of the back wall to direct said strip inwardly and dispose it vertically between the front and back walls, in which position said strip is inserted between the folds of a shirt collar to support the collar and protect the same and simultaneously maintain the front and back walls in spaced relationship.

2. A shirt box made from a single, substantially rectangular cardboard blank, said blank having fold lines on which it is folded to establish for the blank a back wall, a front wall and side panels, a collar protector on said blank consisting of an integral strip of a length equal to that of the width of the back wall and projecting from one end of said back wall and partially severed therefrom by straight cuts extending along one edge of the back wall and proceeding inwardly from the opposite ends of the strip and providing a portion between them by which said strip remains attached to the back wall, said portion defining a fold line on which the strip is folded to direct it inwardly into vertical position between the front and back walls to thereby maintain said walls in spaced relation and support and protect the shirt collar when inserted between the folds thereof.

IVAN WOLFF. 

